inpatient

See also: impatient and in-patient

English

Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

From in- (“internal”) +‎ patient.

Alternative forms

• in-patient

Noun

inpatient (plural inpatients)

1. (healthcare) A patient whose treatment requires at least one night's residence in a hospital; a hospitalized patient.

   Antonym: outpatient

   • 1998, Maria Owings, Lola Jean Kozak, Ambulatory and Inpatient Procedures in the United States, 1996, Issue 139‎^[1]:

     For three of the four regions, the number and rate of procedures was higher in inpatient than in ambulatory settings, but in the Midwest the differences between settings were not statistically significant.

Derived terms

• noninpatient

Translations

patient whose treatment needs at least one night's residence in a hospital

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 住院病人 (zhùyuàn bìngrén)

• Finnish: sairaalapotilas, sisäpotilas
• French: patient hospitalier m
• German: stationärer Patient m
• Greek: εσωτερικός ασθενής m (esoterikós asthenís)
• Hungarian: fekvőbeteg, bentfekvő
• Polish: pacjent hospitalizowany m, pacjentka hospitalizowana f
• Portuguese: internado (pt) m
• Russian: стациона́рный больно́й m (stacionárnyj bolʹnój), стациона́рный пацие́нт m (stacionárnyj paciént)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Roman: stacionarni pacijent m, hospitalizirani pacijent m

• Spanish: paciente hospitalizado m, endopaciente m or f
• Swedish: sluten (sv) (of care), inlagd (sv) (admitted to hospital, hospitalized – adjective, can be nominalized), intagen (sv) (more often of prison, but also fairly common for (involuntary) psychiatric care and the like – adjective, can be nominalized)
• Thai: ผู้ป่วยใน

Adjective

inpatient (not comparable)

1. Of treatment, requiring at least one night's residence in a hospital.
   • 2025 August 13, Müjdat Erarkadaş, Kübra Özmeral Erarkadaş, Şahika Gülen Şişmanlar, “Autism Spectrum Disorder Beyond Childhood: A Comprehensive Assessment of Activities of Daily Living and Social Functioning in Turkish Adults.”, in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders‎^[2], →DOI:

     the aim of our study is to evaluate, separately, the levels of independence and social functioning in adulthood among individuals diagnosed with ASD in early childhood, taking into account the cultural context and available resources of our country, and based on sociodemographic variables. […] Exclusion criteria included the presence of severe psychiatric disorders in the parent (such as psychosis requiring inpatient treatment, mood disorders in the acute phase, moderate to severe intellectual disability), physical illnesses that would impair communication (e.g., significant hearing or speech impairments), illiteracy, or inability to contact the parent.

Translations

requiring at least one night's residence in a hospital

• Polish: szpitalny (pl)

Further reading

• “inpatient, in-patient”, in Google Books Ngram Viewer.

Etymology 2

By surface analysis, in- (“not”) +‎ patient.

Adjective

inpatient

1. Alternative spelling of impatient.
   • 1668, Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World‎^[3]:

     ...she told her, That she had an extreme desire to converse with the soul of her Noble Lord and dear Husband, and that she was inpatient of a longer stay.